Midsouth Pride 2011-Memphis, Tennessee (On Beale Street)
Rev. Sonya Miller Temple of the Sacred Gift-ATC (Memphis, TN)
Me, and some of my closest witchling friends speak of life as not “spiraling out of control” but “spiraling back around”. This phrase to us is like when you find yourself in a moment in life and you realize that everything you have ever worked for and believed has led you to that spot. It’s your witchy “aha!” moment. It makes you get all goosebumpy, and choked up you feel glorious and thank-full. You experience many times like this in a lifetime, but strangely enough they outweigh the normal every day “aha” moments you get while fixing the plumbing under the sink! This Saturday was one of those glorious “I felt it” “I knew it” and “I felt exhilarated” moments.
When you are younger, you might have it in your mind that you have reached the pinnacle of ethics for your life when you walk what you say you believe. That was a decision I made for myself and my family when I was in my twenties. Sometimes, I have missed the mark.
Sometimes I have not liked the physical requirements or long reaching results of played-out ethics, but as you grow older you choose how to invest your time more wisely. As a Pagan it is really hard to “choose” to come out to your friends and family. I have done both, some with great results, others not really smashing; either way, I made that choice and found liberation in it.
I am a Libra. I am telling you this for a reason: while I claim it has little to do with my day-to-day life, it has a lot to do with how I see and approach the world. I was a student of the humanities (philosophy, political science, sociology, psychology, and anthropology) that got fed up when I realized I was being trained to espouse and promulgate theories for other people to act upon. Something about that rubbed me the wrong way, until the day I turned in my resignation from graduate school. I told them I wanted to live out my theories on the best way to live my life. Being a Pagan/Wiccan/Witch was one of them, and the other was acting and doing something about the world we live in. I believe helping co-found the Temple of the Sacred Gift-ATC with Brian Miller and Allison Hancock was just that: acting on my Pagan principles and offering to others a “umbrella” of protection so that they could worship in a safe environment without worries or fears. It developed into being a home for people that fit nowhere else in the communities. It developed into a Temple full of people that have political and social ideas that feel strongly about them that wanted to do something in the real world, and this is a truly sacred gift.
One year ago, I stayed at home with a newborn, and the rest of the Temple went to Festival of Souls in the woods for a Samhain festival. My members also participated in Midsouth Pride 2010 and had a blast. When my members came back from Pride they were determined that the next year we would participate as a Temple and put our actions where our words were. We would march, we would have a float, we would have a booth and I agreed to the idea. For two years now we have happily supported the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center, sending them food for the pantries and clothing for those in need. The Temple and the MLGCC has slowly but surely formed a bond that has grown stronger every month. I am proud of this accomplishment but I wanted more.
I have no idea how to build a float. I am not really gifted in crafty areas, but several of the people in our Temple are. I do hair, I build wigs, I paint canvases on people, I have a way with color, and I am a great decorator—but I have not built a float. Expediously my members brought me stacks of forms to fill out, which I did. Swiftly, they went to meetings and listened and hobnobbed with the facilitators, then eventually paid for our spaces with a generous donation thrown in. They quickly volunteered and went to float-building classes on their own time! Lists were made, ideas were drawn out, materials were acquired and we went to work. The idea? To show people what we do at our Temple that is different than all the other churches in town…worship a goddess! Two weeks, every night after work and some after their night shifts people came in to the Temple to build a float for Memphis Gay Pride.
First, we painted a canvas in swirling colors which had to dry that night. Next we painted and traced temples from various civilizations on the back, Stonehenge, the pyramids, the Greek Parthenon, etc.This took hours, with tedious painstaking detail, but it worked, and we were done for the night. Then we papermachéd and sculpted the Goddess; it took two layers and we had to wait for her to dry. We painted her with a Kilz coat, and the next morning when it had dried I repainted her with help from Michelle. Then, Allison and Katie painted her with vines and flowers.
Angela and I and everyone made letters with aluminum foil cardboard, tissue paper….TEMPLE OF THE SACRED GIFT, and TSG for the back of the float. We cut out cardboard for the sides, front, back, to cover the wheels. We constructed a way to hang the tarp out of pipes (thank you Dwayne). He also devised a way to bolt our Goddess into the trailer! We covered the boxes with table clothes and pasted the letters on one by one. We took a trellis and cut it to size and then wound fabric and vines on it. We made an altar, and glued candles incense holders and vines around it. I made a head out of a wig model, painted it, gave her a beautiful wig and headpiece with feathers and we glued it onto her head. We made the Goddess’ arms out of chicken wire and papermaché. We cut and painted pentagrams for her to hold in each hand. We made a rainbow out of construction paper and painted it for her to have arch over her anchored by our pentagrams. Surprisingly even in such close quarters with all of running on such little sleep, no one snapped, no got in an argument, everyone was happy and we worked. One night, our template Katie says, “This is cool because you know tonight we are all connected to everyone else doing this tonight for a general purpose all of us in Memphis!” and I knew she was right, and that we were, in that moment, connected to everyone working for Gay Pride.
I have never worked so hard on something that I knew had no monetary return! Yep, that is right…never. Allison designed and made beautiful bright orange handbills with our Temple website on it and a large pentagram hundreds of them, we made brochures with information about our religion and our Temple, we printed and ordered more tee shirts that proudly proclaimed “OUR GODS PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS”. In the end we were ready to go. We set up our booth at 8am, and filled it with incenses and crystals, and necklaces, and athames and candles with our Temple flag hanging up proudly right next to the Human Rights Campaign booth. 10am we were putting together the float in the parking lot. 12:30 we were eating quickly. 1pm we were lining up with baskets of candy and handbills. The parade began to start, and we marched!
I had never had such a moment where I knew I was doing the right thing! I had never had such a moment where I was so proud! I had never marched in a parade, I had never had so many hug me and tell me how proud they were of us! I have never had so many people say “I had no idea that you had a legal organization out there for us!” Not one person asked what we believed, or why we were there (since a lot of us there were not homosexual). As we marched, we all smiled and laughed and hugged people we knew and did not know on Beale Street. We all looked so proud, we were in our element. We as Wiccans in the Midsouth area were coming out publicly to proclaim ourselves as the rest of the people were coming out for separate reasons! We were marching for equal rights for everyone and understanding that ethically it is dear to the every Wiccan’s heart. Many people say they are open to “sexual orientation” but few will get out there and show their face and say “I TAKE A STAND FOR THIS!”
The single most important thing I feel I have ever done with the Temple is work my butt off for a float. I do not care that it cost more than it will ever make in money. I care that we in that moment came together and showed our city that we feel this way about this issue. That we not only talked the talk but walked the walk. I pray that you too have moments in your life when you realize that sometimes being public and taking a stand is what is needed for this world. Adopting dogs is great, organic gardening is fantastic, giving food and clothing to charities is laudable, but sometimes we need to do more. For the Temple, we did more and for this reason I am proud to say I have helped co-found the most instrumental thing in my life that has helped me grow and dismiss boundaries in my life. Thank you Isis for sending me here! Thank you Isis for everyone you sent to my life! Thank you Midsouth Pride for treating us so wonderfully!
Next year, we are going to win a float trophy! Just you wait and see!
